The city attorney's office has filed a lawsuit against an adult movie theater that has been the site of 31 lewd conduct arrests over the past 18 months. The "red-light abatement" lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against the owner and operators of the Regent Theater at 448 S. Main St. Building owner Morton Wexler and theater operators Abu Tayyib and Kae Sun Cho are named as defendants.

The owner of the former Pussycat Theater in Anaheim received a $200,000 settlement Tuesday for a loss of business from the property the city demolished. While council members approved the claim by Amil Shab against the city Redevelopment Agency, the value of the property is still in dispute, Redevelopment Director Norm Priest said. The city acquired the Pussycat Theater, known for its sexually explicit films, through its condemnation powers in 1983, Priest said.

Arson has been blamed for a fire Thursday that destroyed a pizza parlor and an adult movie theater in the 1000 block of University Avenue, a Metro Strike Team investigator said. Firefighters were called at 6 a.m. to 1059 University Ave., where they found Disc-O-Pizza and Cinema F, which occupied one building, engulfed in flames. A second alarm was sounded at 6:15 a.m. and a third alarm was issued a few minutes later, bringing to 80 the number of firefighters battling the blaze.

The Los Angeles city attorney is seeking a court injunction to force a Canoga Park adult movie theater to continue cooperating with a police crackdown on lewd activity. The target of the lawsuit filed by the city in Los Angeles Superior Court is the Pussycat Park Theatre at 21622 Sherman Way. Deputy City Atty. Marcia Gonzales-Kimbrough said police have made 96 arrests during the past two years for lewd conduct in the theater.

Cities can restrict the location of theaters that show certain types of sexually explicit films on a "regular basis," the state Supreme Court ruled today over the first-ever dissent of new Justice Joyce Kennard. The case, from Long Beach, involved the issue of how often a theater must show sex films to qualify as an "adult" theater subject to zoning restrictions in many cities. Four of the seven justices, led by Chief Justice Malcolm Lucas, voted to allow restrictions on theaters that have a "regular and substantial course of conduct" of showing films that portray specified sexual activities or parts of the body.

Santa Ana officials have stepped up their battle to close an adult movie theater in the city, three weeks after both the city attorney and city manager recommended a proposal to settle the 10-year-old legal fracas. Private attorney James Clancy, who recently signed a $50-an-hour contract to continue to represent the city in its fight against the Mitchell Bros.

A Santa Ana savings and loan's efforts to close down an adult theater in nearby Honer Plaza was rejected by the courts again Monday, this time by the 4th District Court of Appeal. The state appellate court in Santa Ana found no merit to a lawsuit by the Lincoln Savings & Loan Assn. against the owners of the Mitchell Bros. theater, who already had won a 10-year battle with the city of Santa Ana to keep their adult movie house open.

Attorney James Clancy, who represents the city in its case against the Mitchell Bros. adult movie theater, has signed a new $1-a-year contract after attorneys for the X-rated theater chain made a motion in Santa Ana Superior Court to have him disqualified from the case.

The Supreme Court today agreed to decide how far communities may go in restricting where adult movie theaters locate. The court's eventual decision in a case from Renton, Wash., could clarify whether communities may use zoning laws to restrict the locations of new adult theaters. In a 1976 decision, the high court allowed Detroit to require the dispersal of adult theaters--no two could locate within 1,000 feet of each other.

The Pussycat Theater, a movie house for adult films, has been shut down, boarded up and soon will make way for an expanded Ted Jones Ford auto dealership, officials said. "The city has no use for, and will not tolerate, facilities that cater to a degenerate environment," Mayor Don R. Griffin said in reading a prepared statement at Monday's City Council meeting. City officials had long said they wanted to close the theater.